


getting back to fine

by crestfaller



Series: if only everything was fine [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Apologies, Blood and Injury, Body Worship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Guilt, Hurt Barry Allen, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Metahumans, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Protective Leonard Snart, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27509839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crestfaller/pseuds/crestfaller
Summary: Barry is a bloodied disaster dredged up at Len’s door after a meta nearly gets the best of him. He’s healing slower these days and can’t bring himself to admit it to himself or the team at S.T.A.R. Labs, and Len’s night shifts to trying to put him back together.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Series: if only everything was fine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2070843
Comments: 19
Kudos: 200





	getting back to fine

**Author's Note:**

> Whump is one of my favorite tropes, so this is very angsty, very whump. There is no graphic description of violence, however, there is definitely graphic descriptions of post-violence, so if you can't stand blood and injury do not read because there's a lot of that here. 
> 
> Also goes into great deal into feelings of inadequacy and imposter-syndrome. Just be warned!

The way his knees wobble back and forth, shaking like hastily duct-taped stilts about to collapse under the weight of man, tells Barry he should not have shown up here. Too wounded to flash away, he’s worried that the combo of blood loss, injury, and cold will have him freezing to death if he does not find his way inside a warm space soon.

The night is sharpened by the cold, the air brisk and chilling and every edge to Central City is harder than any other night, and there are no soft clouds in the sky. Central City is big enough to block out most of the stars but Len’s neighborhood, or neighborhood of one of his safe houses, there are four Barry can see. Four stars, _eh, one might be a satellite_ , he thinks because it’s moving and fading in and out, and Barry realizes _whoa, no, that’s me, that’s my… head_ , and he falls against the door to the little complex with a thump.

When Barry swallows it burns with the warmth of blood, coating the sides of his mouth with the tang of iron, welling up his eyes. It surprises him. The contrast of the blood to the cool night air makes him shake even worse. Looking down at his hands, he can see his bare skin through peels of his suit, ripped open in jagged gashes. The friction of the meta’s grip of vines had torn him open in loops around his body; even worse, he’s healing slower these days, so he just keeps _bleeding_.

Caitlin and Cisco don’t know yet, but he thinks Cisco is figuring it out from the monitors. His vitals don’t pick up as quickly, his heart races a lot harder for a lot longer. He’s getting older, what can he say? Thankfully tonight, the suit is so destroyed that there’s nothing transmitting to Cisco except his text that he sent after the fact with bloody fingerprints saying that he’s fine and heading to Len’s.

A lie. He just — he knew that if Caitlin saw it tonight, he knew that if he showed up at S.T.A.R. Labs he’d be met with a series of queries and questions and tests and he just —

He needed to not be looked like a failed science experiment.

So he came here, but he’s beginning to regret it. _What am I doing_? He’s too hurt, he’s so hurt he’s scaring himself, and he’s going to scare the man behind this door. He’s going to scare anyone who sees him.

 _It’s Len_ , Barry tries to breathe into a mantra. _It’s Len, he’ll be alright._

He braces his head against the door with his arm, and he feels blood trickle out of the open wounds and on to his face, but he just needs to breathe, feel something but searing blood in his lungs. Needs to get his bearings. He can look like shit, but he doesn’t need to walk in like the mess he is.

Maybe Len isn’t even home. Unlikely, with the light on — though it’s dim — but Len plays plenty of games to make people think that someone’s in the house, dissuade someone from breaking in, ironically. Plays the television, sets it to change channels every few hours. Has lights with automatic lights on and off features going on throughout the house. So maybe Len’s not in tonight. He’s plotting with the Rogues even though he shouldn’t be, or maybe he’s drinking with Mick, and he won’t be here and Barry can drag himself across his floor without bleeding out too much and he’ll be able to curl up in one of his thick woolen blankets and almost die there.

Almost die. Not quite die. He won’t do that to Len if he can help it.

Grabbing the handle, he usually flashes through Len’s door, but he was given a key in case he needed to interrupt a Rogues meeting or, though Len doesn’t know this, moments like this where if he tries to flash he will destroy any healing process his bones have been making. He fumbles with the key through his slippery fingers and drops it, but manages to catch it with a swift jut of his hand and presses it into the lock. Then he steps inside.

Glowing lights hug around the corners of the apartment, making bright the shadows of the hallways and the door. There’s the tang of ink in the air from all of Len’s plans drawing up and research for his heists, Barry can hear the sound of sheets of papers being rifled through. _Len’s here_ , he thinks, idly. There’s more too. It’s all coupled with the crackle of bread and simmering meat, music is soaring a little too soft for Barry to hear the words but it lifts him up and makes him want to _reach_. The comforts of a thief’s den are all encompassing, and Barry would bask in it if it weren’t for the blood coming out of his nose.

Around the corner Len is sitting at his counter, Barry’s sure. He probably has a mug of hot chocolate, it’s just gotten to hot-chocolate-drinking-weather — even though Len insists it’s an anytime drink — he is sure to be taking advantage of the cool in particular. But chocolate’s too much of a nuanced smell, and all nuance is stifled by the smell of violence and the ringing in Barry’s ears, but he knows Len so he can picture it anyway.

Barry’s ruining his night. Slumped in the corner where the light doesn’t quite touch, left alone in the small recesses of darkness is where he should have remained. He shouldn’t have come here.

“Be patient, there, Scarlet. Let me pack up, then you can come in and grab some food. Can’t have the Flash knowing my plans.” _Fuck, he knows I’m here_.

He supposes that makes sense. Lisa would announce herself every time, Mick never just showed up, Barry was the only other one with a key and he definitely used it to come in this time.

More rustling. The sound of scraping stool against his tile floor, and Barry could cry. Len was sitting at his counter. Enjoying a nice night, and he gets so few, and Barry’s a disaster dredged up at his door.

“What’d Ramon call this meta?” Len asks. “Flower Child? Rosebud? What with all the vines and thorns and the weird constricting powers, I imagine he came up with something stupid. Nothing quite beats _Captain Cold_ , but then again I’m a little biased.” He chuckles to himself, and Barry would laugh too if he could get the proper amount of air in his lungs. Instead it's coupled with a bit too much misery. Len sounds easy, relaxed, which is rare. Sounds at _home._ “Little offended you didn’t ask for my help tonight, she looked tough.”

He should have. He thought about it. Too late into it, and Barry couldn’t quite figure out if he was grateful he made sure that Len was kept away from all this or if he wished desperately he was there with him so it didn’t feel like he was totally alone.

Barry voices none of this, because he can’t. Instead he presses his back against the door and struggles to keep himself from falling. Everything’s so warm he can almost relax. _Just keep yourself upright_. He presses his palms flat against the door, and his whole back is sticky, and god he’s getting blood on the door and —

“Oi, Red, you there?”

The clunk of Len picking up the Cold Gun. Oh God, if Len thinks he’s an intruder… He can’t get iced right now. He can’t, he _can’t_.

All he needs to do is form any kind of words. _Hey Len_ , would be good, though he’d know something was up. They don’t usually greet each other, Barry realizes. Usually Len will say something to him snarky and Barry will respond, and that’s their greeting. It’s theirs. It’s theirs. It’s theirs.

But he can’t tonight. He thinks on what to start with. _I’m alright._ No, that presumes something is wrong. _Cisco called her Vine-Viper. Yeah it was lame._ He’d laugh at that, but it’s too many words.

_Hi. Start with hi._

Barry goes to open his mouth and tries to sound out the ‘h’, the sound grating against his vocal chords. This choking noise comes from his throat instead, like during a flu and there’s too much phlegm in your sinuses, there’s this pop, a vile sound, and Barry’s vomiting.

Blood. Oh god, he’s vomiting blood. His vision fades a little bit, the glow of Len’s place being taken away, receding. Too much darkness here.

“Barry!”

Hands slam beside his face along the door and it startles Barry’s attention back.

“Stay with me, Scarlet, hey.”

Ooh, his head is _woozy_. Len looks all kinds of concerned in front of him. Captain Cold doesn’t get this face, but Leonard Snart does. Oh, Leonard Snart has all kinds of boxed up concern inside of him. They’re similar in that way. Len can hide it better, though, he’s so good at hiding all of his boxes, all of his emotions he wishes didn’t pull him up and down, but he’s letting Barry in now. Barry’s seen the storage room. If Len would let him, he’d curl up like a cat in those boxes and know each nook and cranny intimately. He’d take care of them, keep them safe and warm and claw at anyone who tried to remove them. He’d do it the moment Len asked.

Len doesn’t need someone to take care of him, though. Neither does Barry. Except maybe right now.

Barry tries to smile, and he knows its gruesome by the way Len’s face scrunches up, but he does it anyway. A viscous consistency coats his teeth.

“I know you,” he says, too fond, his heart feels like it’s pouring out of his throat. Liquid dribbles beyond his lips, and his voice is so garbled he’s not sure Len understands what he said.

Len’s gaze surveys him, assessing. Trying to figure out which is the next step. _This_ is Captain Cold. It’s Len, but it’s Captain Cold, he’s so good at figuring out plans. At throwing away plans. Working everything out anyway.

A touch to Barry’s side and he’s seething, pressing himself hard against the door even though the rawness of his back takes all the air out of his lungs. Len pulls his hands away and raises them up as though Barry’s looking him down the barrel of a gun.

“Okay, okay, whoa. What happened?”

“I’m sorry.” It doesn’t sound like a good apology. Not that he doesn’t feel it, no, the _oomph_ is there, but it’s too wrapped up in Barry being a pitiful disaster.

Len doesn’t respond to that, instead continuing down his preferred inquiry. “Why aren’t you at S.T.A.R. Labs? Can’t they help you? Why aren’t they helping you?” His tone goes from concerned to angry on Barry’s behalf, always ready to be on guard and Barry almost laughs. It burbles in his chest and stomach somewhere, but it dies before the sound can make it out. Probably for the better.

“I’ll heal.” he says. He is healing. It’s just slow.

Len knows this. Barry never told him, his pride keeping it away, but Len figured it out. Len has him all mapped out, from how long it takes him to mark Barry with a hickie that will stay awhile —a fun experiment — to how long it takes Barry to heal from a broken arm — less fun — and Len has been taking note. Len always was obsessed with the timing of things. He knew almost as soon as Barry did that his powers were diminishing.

“Not fast enough. It’s not, it’s not fast enough —”

Barry raises his hand off the door, though it takes a lot of effort. He bears his wrist, strips of his suit draping down like a banana peel.

“This was open,” Barry says. It’s all he can manage to get out. “Only a bruise, now.” He _is_ healing. It’s just going slow. It just hurts worse than anything he’s experienced for a while.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

 _Why am I not at S.T.A.R. Labs?_ Barry frowns. Shakes his head. It feels like his brain is sliding around his skull and the world spins a little.

“They don’t need this,” he mumbles. They don’t need to know that his powers are draining. They don’t need to go through and mourn him surrounded by all their other heroes who they can focus on. They don’t need the guilt of feeling like they failed him just as much as Barry feels he failed them.

“And I do?” Len asks, his voice a whip, and it cracks against Barry with the realization Len probably needs this even less. A lot less. He’s not a doctor, he can’t do anything about this. This probably is all too reminiscent to juvie or Lisa when they were kids where he has to stand there a little bit too helpless, a little too incapable. He’s just watching his partner bleed out against his door, and Barry came here because he’s too proud to show Caitlin and Cisco that the hero of Central City is disappearing by the day.

Oh _fuck_.

Something must pass across his face because Len slides a palm over his head. “Didn’t mean that, you need someone, you should be here — I’m just —”

Whatever Len’s going to say is cut off by Barry losing all of his air, there's too much blood on the door and he can't brace himself against it anymore so he begins to slide. His skin feels like it’s tearing and he _screams_ as he falls down, down, and then he’s braced hard against the wall which stifles his yelling with a gasp due to the broken ribs, and Len's hand is covering his mouth.

“ _Barry_.” Len’s voice tears out of his throat, almost watery sounding. He’s looking from Barry to above him, and when Barry lolls his head back he can see the streak of red against the door. He knew he’d leave one.

“Ah.” It’s muffled behind Len’s hand. Len moves it, cups the side of Barry’s face, his palm warm against his cold and waxy skin. “‘m sorry,” Barry says again.

“Quit wasting your breath on that, I don’t — “ Len breathes, harsh, in and out like a bull. “Tell me how I can _help_ you. What do you need?”

“Let me go.”

“ _What_?”

That sounded dramatic, Barry realizes, but all he meant was that Len is holding him up in a weird uncomfortable position and he just needs to lower to the floor. “The floor. Len. Let me fall.” He coughs, and it's scorching in his throat. Blood spatters everywhere, all over Len’s face, oh Jesus. “To the floor,” he clarifies.

“Jesus, Red.” Len spits back, and wipes the blood off his face. “Word choice.”

“Sorry.”

Len’s mumbling something, expletives, Barry catches a “ _that’s the word of the day apparently”_ , and Barry realizes he needs to stop saying ‘sorry’ but he can’t bring himself to stop. He is sorry. He’s sorry about a lot of things. He’s sorry about the furrow in between Len’s eyebrows and about the blood on his door, but it’s more than that. It’s more than the thoughts currently filling his swirling head and reddened mouth.

Len does lower him to the floor, and once Barry feels the solid ground beneath him he lets out a big sigh of relief. His ribs can snap back into place in this position, if he just curls in on himself a little.

“I’m getting a first aid kit. Stay awake. Run circles in your head or something.” Len searches him for a moment after he says it, and then he’s got his fingers on Barry’s chin and forcing him to look up. “I’m getting a first aid kit. Stay. Awake.”

Len’s all lit up from the glow behind him. The light curls around enough of his face that Barry can get a good look at him, a real good look. Big eyes, half lidded most of the time or narrowed, are right now wide and stormy in their color. Lips are pressed into a thin line, something he does when he thinks. Eyebrows almost feathered, he always had nice eyebrows, nice bone structure, that’s why the light paints his face so nice, curling over his straight nose. He looks angelic, which he would hate if he knew that which kind of delights Barry.

“Yes Cap,” Barry says, hiccuping a clot. He’d wink, but his brain’s not sending the right impulses. It's more a spasm.

Len does not look pleased. But he does reach forward and Barry realizes he was scanning him for places where he could touch that weren’t ripped open. Grabs the tops of his shoulders and squeezes, lightly, letting his hands trail to his neck.

“Stay awake,” he murmurs one more time. Then he lets go in a _whoosh_ , and Barry swears he’s as fast as he is as the Flash that moment because he is instantly out of sight.

Either that or without something to focus on, Barry isn’t keeping very good track.

He burrows further into the corner, hoping the blood will be less noticeable out of the light. Not that it’d ever be enough to fool Len. Len knows his apartments so well, he gets the blueprints to all of them before he rents them, which delights Barry in a nerdy way. Len takes out the flooring, takes out the ceiling, looks for places to hide things, looks for things people might try to hide things on him. Len’s really handy, and even more exciting, Barry was able to surprise Len with the fact that he can be handy as well. They sketched furniture on a blueprint first, creating paths to exits and safes and safe havens from the birds-eye, and then they got furniture to fit those exact dimensions. Shopping for furniture was Len was the longest shopping adventure of his life; it was a lot of arguing with shop owners when Len’s own measuring tape would show that their listed dimensions were wrong. It was so _fun_ ; he remembers snapping the measuring tape against Len’s arm over and over and over just to annoy him, deliberating stupid things from shower curtains to whether the accents should be silver or gold or black or white. They both didn’t like leather couches _“even though all you wear is leather, Scarlet?”_ and Barry would smack him because Len _knew_ his suit wasn’t leather. Barry would show him pots and pans, _“red and blue, get it?”_ he’d say and then Len grabbed them and said “ _Le Cruset is a scam,”_ and Barry would snicker because he never imagined Captain Cold having such opinions on cooking ware.

Then they’d set up this place, and Len could walk it backwards, on his hands, blindfolded and deaf, he’d always know where he was. Always know where everything is. Didn’t need any lights on, knew what noises came from where. It was a safety thing, which Barry found to be both inspiring and a little sad. Maybe that’s why he came here. Len makes a tiny complex into a fortress and protects everything inside like a dragon does its treasure, and Barry just needed to be treasure for a little bit.

A slap to his face. _Hard_. Barry’s not even sure what he was thinking about; he hadn’t realized that he’d closed his eyes.

“Barry! Stay awake!”

Len’s voice is so _shrill_.

He is definitely awake and eyes open and, God, there’s a very concerned Len again. This is a face he has not seen before.

Terrified. Len is terrified.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “‘m sorry.” 

A quick hand over his scalp, Len recoils at the words as if they burn him. “Stop saying you’re sorry. Just, just —”

Len’s hands are shaking, and his gaze is skittering. Len never stands still in a way that’s similar to Barry’s inability to sit still, and right now his hands are shaking over the first-aid kit like he doesn’t know where to begin because Barry is too much of a wreck. He’s frozen, and Barry can see the panic get worse as it crawls up his spine, because the longer he sits doing nothing the more blood drips out of Barry, and he’s putting that on himself.

Barry reaches out and grabs his hands. Len jolts, and his eyes find Barry’s again. Barry can’t quite curl his fingers around Len’s, his fine motor skills are real shit right now, but Len clearly gets the point. He pulls his hand back, trying to keep one finger curled around Len’s wrist to direct his hand to a particularly nasty wound on his side.

There’s a lot of things he wants to say to Len, _it’s alright,_ and _you’re doing fine, it’ll be fine_ , and mainly _I’m sorry_ , but he feels a bubble in his throat like he’s going to cough blood all over Len’s face again so all he manages is, “Here.”

Len nods and reaches for the first aid kit and his lighter. The flame over the blade and another deep breath, Barry has to force himself to smell the butane in the lighter, but it's preferable to the metal smell in the air. Focused on his task, Len seems to have gotten his bearings, too.

“I’m going to cut you out of your suit, Scarlet,” he says. His voice level due to the tension, the force of his will making it even, not due to ease. “Then I’m going to clean out your wound, and then I’m going to try to stitch you up. It’s probably going to hurt, ‘cause I’m no nurse. Just so you know.”

Barry nods.

Hand to his shoulder, the other one with the heated blade to cut Barry out of the ribbons he’s draped in. Usually a heated blade wouldn’t be enough, but the structural integrity of the Flash suit is pretty much disintegrated, and so it cuts away. Another flicker of the lighter and Len cuts away a big enough hole around his ribs and lets out another heavy huff of breath.

Surprise flickers across Len’s face and Barry looks down to see a lot more damage than just the open wound by his ribs. A lot of bruising. A lot of scratches that are bleeding out. Len freezes again, his hands gripping the strips of Barry’s suit like a lifeline.

“You’re really hurt, baby.”

Oh god, _baby_. That’s a rare endearment. That’s an endearment when Barry’s really in trouble, like when his dad died and he was digging holes in his mind to go stick his head in like an ostrich and die, or after Roy Bivolo whammied him with a rage that made him want to destroy the world, and the aftermath made Barry shake in horror at his own capabilities. The first time he thought he just misheard his name, but it’s when Barry’s at his worst that all the endearments get their seat at the table. _Sweetheart, honey, baby_ , Len would whisper it into his temple, into his hairline, always while he was trying to bring him back from the brink.

“I know,” Barry says.

That’s when Barry realizes he’s said a lot of _I’m sorry_ , but he hasn’t… he hasn’t thanked him. For all of this. Len the hardened criminal, who so many people warned him against, who so many people were mad at him for having faith in, and he’s stuck by him through so much. To the point Barry chose to come here above anywhere else.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Len says with a snort, but Barry can hear it’s an act. It’s a way to bolster his own confidence. “Health care was never a profession I pictured myself in.”

 _I’m not just thanking you for this,_ Barry thinks, but he doesn’t voice it. Keeps the subject light so Len can focus. “Doctor Cold?”

Len huffs a laugh and he shakes his head. “Don’t make me laugh while I’m holding a knife.” Then he looks up at Barry, suddenly serious again. “But keep talking. Keep talking to me, Scarlet.”

“About what?”

“Anything. Just, keep talking.”

“Cisco named her Vine-Viper.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I thought so too.”

Len gets ice water and begins clearing the worst of the wound with a cloth, his eyebrows furrowed, and Barry hisses in pain when the cloth drags across the open wound. “Sorry,” Len whispers.

Barry shakes his head. “’s okay.” Then he looks at the ice water. “Can I have some-a-that?” he slurs.

Len reaches for his canteen and uncaps it, and when Barry reaches to grab it for himself Len shakes his head. “I got you,” he says. He puts a hand on the base of Barry’s skull and tips his head back. “Spit this one out, get some of the blood out of your mouth.”

He begins pouring the water in small accessible sips down Barry’s throat, and Barry lets it collect, swish around. The refreshing taste of the ice cold water is ruined quickly, the red in his mouth heating up the liquid. The blood in his mouth runs off his teeth and cheeks and throat and pools on his jaw. Then Len holds a cloth to Barry’s mouth and he spits it out, a gob of pink. If it fazes Len, he doesn’t show it, instead just throws the towel away.

“Good boy,” he whispers, and Barry smiles. Then he brings the canteen back to Barry’s lips, pouring slow, and Barry drinks it down like it’s an oasis, leaning back into the sure and stable pressure of Len’s hand cupping his head. Clearing out the worst of the blood behind his mouth, he can appreciate the sweetness of the cold water. 

“Good?” Len asks once he’s done.

Barry nods. His throat is clearer. Though the tang of blood is still all over him, it’s no longer clutching in his throat and nose. “Yeah.” He can speak without vomiting blood. A good start.

“You just let me know, sweetheart,” he says, recapping it and showing Barry exactly where he’s placing it.A warmth blossoms in Barry’s chest at _sweetheart_ , but all he does is nod. “Keep talking now.”

Next is the alcohol and flame over the needle, and he knows the stitches are about to begin. Painkillers don’t do anything to Barry, so he gets to experience this with nothing to soothe the ache. And suddenly, Barry finds himself on a topic he wishes he didn’t bring up now, but he can’t stop himself.

“Because my healing, they forget,” he says. Len pokes the needle through and he whimpers.

At that, Len’s gaze flickers to his face. “Explain what you mean. Keep talking, Barr. Breathe through it.”

“Cisco and Caitlin, they — they give me warnings, they, they, they act like I don’t remember the bad things people do. Think I’m too idealistic.” He spares a glance at Len, because Len also thinks Barry is too idealistic, but he doesn’t make a face or anything. Doesn’t resound an agreement. He’s too focused on the needle, which, is where his focus should be diverted anyway. Barry continues. “I appreciate it, means they care, but they act like I don’t remember because I think they have the ability to forget. Because they don’t feel the pain, they just see it, and then in a few hours it’s gone.” Another pinch of the skin, Len pulls the thread and Barry’s vision swims a little.

“Breathe, Scarlet,” Len reminds.

A harsh breath. Ragged. But it’s whole. Len nods for Barry to keep talking.

“I don’t forget.” There’s a knot in his chest that’s tightening at the thought, and his eyes water and it’s not just from the pain and the blood and the ringing in his ears, but the overall cruelty of everything that’s insurmountable at this moment. “Do they really think I can forget this?”

Len knows. It’s in Barry’s nightmares, why he thrashes around, why he startles almost as much as Len does at any sound of an intruder. Len moves his hand to card through Barry’s hair once, twice, enough to get him to relax before returning to the stitches.

“They warned me about you, when we first started,” Barry says. _Look at you now, how much you do for me? How could they have so little faith in you?_ goes unsaid, but it’s heavily implied, Barry thinks.

“Well, they have a little leverage there because I did kidnap the good Doc and Ramon’s brother,” Len says.

“True, but they got over that. And you went with the Legends.”

“Is this going to be another discussion about the good in me, Scarlet?”

“No.” Then Barry winces a little but he can’t help but laugh. Len glares at him for moving and maybe because that is exactly what he’s going to talk about. “Maybe a little. ‘Cause Caitlin and Cisco got over that. Caitlin invited you to Christmas this year.”

“I know,” Len says, quiet. He still can’t really believe it either, Barry knows. Doesn’t love the thought of being all domestic, but he does it for Barry. God, Barry adores him.

Len’s fingers are slippery with blood and it’s clearly getting to him a little because he keeps swiping his hand frantically all over his pants every time they get just a little too red. They look like a crime scene, together. And that's when Barry realizes there's more to Len's desire for him to keep talking than just to make sure he keeps breathing; he wants Barry to keep talking so he can hold it together. 

So though Barry kind of wants to change the subject, this is the only one his mind can zero in on, and he has to keep talking. “They treated me like I was nuts when I said I trusted you.”

“They have a bit of a point, Barry,” Len says.

They’d had this conversation before. Before Barry made it clear that he was all in, because Len heard the whispers, how could he not? Initially they were frequent. God, his whole family and friends would shoulder Len into a corner every moment they could get just to threaten him. Len took it in stride, with a few snarky remarks, Joe still can’t stand him, but everyone else… It’d worked out. Len managed to do more give and take than any of them expected, even Barry, and now he and Caitlin got _along_. Hell, Cisco and Lisa were nearly best friends, even if dating didn’t really work for them.

“No, they don’t.” Another stretch of the skin being pulled together and Barry strains his whole body against the feeling, kicking his leg out to lash out the pain. Len stops.

“Try to relax, try to relax,” he says, one hand back in Barry’s hair, scraping his nails across the top, and it sends shivers down Barry's spine. “Breathe. Keep talking.”

“I remember you icing me. Remember dislocating your shoulder. I can give as good as I get.”

“Debatable,” Len says with a smirk. _Asshole_. Barry smiles at him, and nods, relaxing back into the wall, and Len pulls his hand away so he can continue stitching.

“The point is, I picked this with all the information available to me. Just because they forget doesn’t mean I do. I just — I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt.”

“Your benefit stretches pretty far and wide, Scarlet.”

“If I can’t believe people can be better, then what’s the point?”

Maybe Len is just trying to pull Barry out of this subject because it’s depressing, or if he just hates talking about it, but Len tries to swerve it quickly: “Philosophy was never one of my better subjects, Barr.”

Barry frowns. “That’s a lie. You know all of the — the big ones. Kant. ‘Stotle. Beauvoir.”

“Machiavelli,” Len brings up. The whole anarchy and it’s okay to lie. Barry snorts.

“‘xactly. You use them in arguments against me all the time. Philosophical arguments. When we debate those big questions.”

A small smile paints its way on Len’s face and Barry feels relieved. Len is far more sophisticated than he lets on. He knows a lot, has a voraciousness for learning. He is a big ol’ nerd, and Barry figured it out because nerds emit beacons to other nerds and Captain Cold is a nerd just like him.

“I use them interchangeably, though, which I think they would frown upon.”

“Well, what’s your philosophy, then?” Barry asks.

“I don’t have one.”

“You live by a philosophy,” Barry argues. He knows he does.

“I live by a code.”

“A code of thieves?”

“Exactly Scarlet, exactly. Not like you do-gooders.”

Barry still remembers his “ _I’m a criminal and a liar, and I hurt people, and I rob them_.”

He must have said it out loud, because Barry hears Len's quiet laugh. “Exactly. But now I’ve got reservations. Am all warm and fuzzy inside. Should ice you for that.”

Barry grins, and it's almost not a grimace. When he tries to respond, his breath stutters, and some of the blood is back. However, Len’s needling him doesn’t hurt as much as it did in the beginning, which could be great or could be worrisome. Either he’s healing, he’s used to it, or he’s lost so much blood he’s numb to it.

“Water?” Len asks. Barry nods. “Let me tie this off, okay? Let me just get this one finished.” Barry nods again and waits, letting his head loll back against the corner. His lashes flutter a little bit and he feels like he could fall asleep when he feels a heavy hand on his knee. “Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me, baby, c’mon. We’re almost done with this big one, and then we can see where you’re at. Just keep looking at me. Let me tie this off, we’ll get you water. You’re going to be fine.”

Barry tries to follow the instructions. It’s not hard, in theory. Len’s easy to look at, he’s a pretty man. Right now, though, he paints a picture of someone who would bite their nails ravenously, or pace, or never sleep, but instead he’s at Barry’s side trying to stitch him back together with shaky hands.

There’s blood over Barry’s teeth again, he can feel it, but he tries to speak anyway. Keep Len sane. Keep himself awake. He shudders, and for a moment he thinks he can’t breathe at all. Len stops moving his needle and places a hand on his chest, murmuring something, it’s a little too quiet for Barry to hear.

Len reaches for a cloth and covers Barry’s mouth. “Get it out.” Barry lets himself cough these wracking coughs, and it comes away red but not as bad as before. Len tucks it away behind him and Barry slumps his head back against the wall.

“You’re a do-gooder, Leonard Snart. You’re a do-gooder just like me, admit it,” Barry whispers.

“This is just payment for when I’m geriatric and you have to wipe my ass,” Len argues.

Len draws up close to the wound in a dive, his nose brushing Barry’s skin just above it and Barry wonders if he’s inspecting it. Instead, Len does a move he clearly learned doing this kind of work in the middle of alleys, as he bites down on the thread and breaks it off with his teeth at where it’s tied off despite having a knife right by him. “There, there we go,” he says. Presses a kiss just above, and it feels _blistering_ in its warmth.

Quickly he cleans off the wound one more time, so much blood on his hands and all over Barry’s skin. He gathers up a pillow of cotton into a patch and tapes it down over the stitches. Then he glances at Barry’s face.

“Water,” he reminds himself.

“Water,” Barry agrees.

Len is about to help him again, uncapping the water bottle, pressing his hand with his thumb and fingers along the tendons of Barry’s neck, but Barry grabs the cantine from him. “I can do it. I can do it.”

“You sure?”

“You’re doing a good job, Doctor Cold.” Barry chuckles and for once it does not come with a litany of blood or nastiness or pain. Len passes a hand through Barry’s hair.

“Don’t look like it,” Len mutters under his breath.

There’s blood all over the floor, up on the door, on the both of them. Barry had less blood on him when his mother died in his arms.

“It just looks bad, Lenny,” Barry says. “It just looks bad, but lots of it has healed.” He raises his arm again, and many of the open cuts from the vice grip Vine-Viper had on him are sealed, even if thinly. “Once I get cleaned up, most of this will be gone.”

“Think you can stand, Scarlet?”

The idea does not sound pleasant, but he probably could. He starts to shift his legs out from underneath him, but he stops and flinches at the feeling of something wet on the other side.

His thigh. His left thigh, low, almost to his knee. There’s another wound there that’s not quite sealing up right, that’s bleeding quite a bit. Now that he knows it’s there, he can’t help but feel clammy all over again.

Len’s already on it. Hopped up to his feet and side stepping around him, handling Barry a little roughly, spinning him away from the door so he can get a better look at it. “Alright, let’s get this one. This one looks like it could be taped shut, which is probably for the better because my stitching skills are terrible.”

“Okay,” Barry croaks.

This one doesn’t take as long, but requires a gruffer maneuvering. It requires Len to straddle his leg so that it stays in one place, and one hand to brace his knee so that he can clean the wound with the other. The harsh movement makes Barry see stars, and Len, seeing he is fading out, grabs Barry’s hand and puts it on his own bicep.

“Grip here. Squeeze twice in quick succession if you think you’re going to pass out.”

Then he gets back to work. Muscles in his jaw all strained as he puts his laser-focus on patching up Barry’s leg. He takes the gauze pillow and places it over the base of the wound, then begins wrapping up the leg tight.

“Let me know if you feel like you’re losing circulation,” Len says. Barry nods.

After a few wraps, Barry cries out, the feeling of the gauze burning on other cuts. Len slows for a moment, lets Barry breathe. He shifts himself upright a bit more, tries to keep his head off the wall, stops letting his eyelids droop, keeps his gaze on Len as he works.

“How ya doin’, Scarlet?”

“M’okay. You?”

Len seethes through a smile and raises his eyebrows. “Peachy,” he says. He taps the side of his thigh. “You’ve got nice legs, could be in a worse position.”

Barry grins. “So you’ve said.”

“So I’ve said,” Len agrees. Then Len gets back to wrapping his thigh, quick, tight, sealing it off with a clasp and a circle of tape.

Then he reaches for the cling wrap with one hand, keeping the other on the patched up leg, and bites the cling wrap with his teeth ripping it from the roll with a jerk of his head. Drops the layer over Barry’s leg and wraps around it a few times. “So you can shower.”

Thank god, because he’s never needed a shower more in his life.

“How’s it feel?” Len asks.

Barry shimmies a little, and though it feels weird to be so taped up in such a manner, it feels secure. He thinks they got the worst of it. Thinks _Len_ got the worst of it. “Better.”

“Think you can stand?” Len asks again, and holds out a hand for Barry to take. This time, Barry is not so nervous about the task, though it’s still going to hurt. Len fixes himself into a stance, and when Barry pulls himself up, he takes on all of Barry’s weight and hoists him upright immediately so Barry hardly has to support himself at all. Been a long time since he was carried. 

“Oh.”

“I’ve got ya, c’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

The way to the shower is a slow limp, the remaining tatters of his Flash suit falling away from him in strips, like coils. If anyone decided to come to Len’s apartment now, there’d be no question as to who was here, however it’d look like Len cut him up into pieces what with all the blood at the door.

In the bathroom, though all Barry wants to do is sink to the cool tile floor and sleep for a hundred years, Len forces him to brace himself on the towel rack and work on keeping himself standing. It’s the first time he has to support himself, and his muscles quiver at the strain, but he keeps a tough face best he can after Len presses a kiss to his temple. Len begins digging for supplies: towels, sensitive soaps, rags, and other first aid things for right after they’re done.

“You’ve lost enough blood, think a cold shower is probably the right way to go so you don’t get your heart pumping too hard.”

“Ice is probably good.”

“Oh, I can get you ice,” Len says with a smile, turning on the shower. Of course he’d manage to track back to idle chit chat at the sound of a potential pun. “We’ll have to be careful you don’t get too cold though.” 

Then he returns his focus to Barry. His cowl is still hanging around his neck, though it’s hardly attached to anything. Len rips that off of him, begins helping Barry take off his clothes. The last time he did this so frantically they’d been keyed up and hadn’t seen each other in weeks.

But there is nothing sexual about this. There’s not even the look on Len’s face that he’s even remotely thinking about it, which Barry appreciates. Not that he ever expected it, but, sometimes people say things that make Barry’s skin want to crawl when his suit’s been half torn off of him. They make remarks about his body, his abs, which still feels weird after all this time. Even people who would never do anything, they’re paying a compliment, but Barry feels like shit and it’s the last thing he wants on his mind. So the fact that Len, his partner who could say those things theoretically because he actually _does_ do things with him like that, is focused on getting Barry back to being a functioning human being means the world to him.

Len gives him a once over, looking for more open wounds. Spins him around by his hips, tests Barry’s grip on the towel rack while he’s at it, and now Barry is facing him.

There is one cut on his chest, but it’s pretty surface level. The rest are all very shallow, or they’re just black bruises with sealed skin. Still, Len places his palm over his chest, before traversing over his heart, feeling it beat its heavy thuds against his chest. 

They stand there for a moment, his heart racing against Len’s palm, closing his eyes and for the first time he doesn’t feel like he’s going to fall into the darkness. Barry would cover Len’s hand in his own if he didn’t absolutely need to grip onto the towel rack for him to remain upright.

“You sure you don’t want me to patch up anything else?” Len asks.

“I’m fine.”

“Oh Scarlet, you are far from fine,” Len argues. Barry opens his eyes to meet Len’s, but instead catches himself in the mirror.

It’s worse, seeing it without his suit on him. His skin is a climate map of blacks and blues, purples and greens, and overall red. Topography map, too, what with the welts and dents and cracked ribs and raised scabs. Red’s coming out of his nose and mouth, dripped down his neck, coating his chest and arms, with few places truly clear from Len’s quick clean up down the hall.

“I’m looking a little gory,” Barry says.

“Little? You look like you crawled out of hell,” Len says, grim in his tone, a bitter look on his face. 

This must have been horrifying to see. Barry and Len had injured each other pretty good in the past, and Barry has seen him bloodied up. Barry’s seen him after he murdered someone. Yet this is somehow different. He has no idea how he’d react if Len came stumbling into his apartment looking like he did now.

His gaze goes back to Len, who is looking at him, every bit apprehensive, every bit taking in the absolute destruction in front of him.

“You okay?” Barry asks.

Len avoids the question. “C’mon, lets get you in the shower. Grip onto the ledge inside, can you raise your arms?”

Barry can raise one with little complaint, but the other, the right side where Len stitched, makes it hard to raise his arm up very far.

Len turns him around with fingertips pressed into his hips. “Enter so that your back is facing the shower then, then if you need to you can grip onto the curtain rod.” Then Len leaves him to it, gathering the supplies and reaching for more. Medication doesn’t work on him, but Barry can guess he’s looking for muscle relaxers, anything that might numb the pain.

The water on his back is a shock, and he gasps.

“Ya alright?” Len yells over the sound of the shower.

“Yeah," Barry says, but he's not so sure. 

Lurching forward a little, he just needs to get used to it, the feel of the cold on his back melting away all the red blood that has scabbed over all of his skin. The spray should be refreshing, the scabs break apart and become thin and liquid again. After a minute, it does feel nice. Barry feels like he can breathe. It soothes the skin, he can feel the sweat and grime slip away. He'd been sweating pretty bad even though it'd been so cold.

He lets his head sling forward and he closes his eyes, letting the water beat against his back. His mind stops working, and in that, it stops sending all signals of _keep self upright_. Next thing he knows he’s a suspension bridge whose cables are cut, collapsing; he tries to grip hard on the curtain rod but he can’t get a good hold, and he’s set to slam into the floor.

Len is there immediately. He moves like fluid. Rips off his shirt with one hand, the other wrapping around Barry’s waist, pressing Barry to him in a line. Possessive fingertips on his sides, anchoring Barry, keeping him from falling any further.

“Careful, careful,” Len murmurs in his ear. Presses his face against the back of Barry’s head and breathes a heavy breath, hot against his cold skin.

Len couldn’t even get his pants off, the denim becoming soaked underneath the spray. In any other situation, Barry might have laughed.

“Dint realize I was fallin’,” Barry slurs.

He reaches above Barry to turn the angle of the shower head lower. “Let’s sit.”

“In your shower?”

“Yup. Think that’s our best bet here.”

“Okay.”

And with that, Len is lowering Barry down again, one hand bracing the wall and the other keeping a steel arm wrapped around him. Barry holds Len’s arm with both of his own, just to feel the strength of him, the purchase of him, keeping Barry afloat. Brackets Barry with his denim-clad legs and Barry just relaxes against Len’s chest. It’s a position they have in bed sometimes, though this time Barry isn’t just languid, he’s dead weight. Len cups his head and presses it to the crook of his shoulder, and Barry shifts a little so he can press his face into Len’s neck.

Len drags his hand down Barry’s back and begins thumbing at the bruises. Swirling patterns over the skin, trying to disperse the blood there, get them to heal faster. Barry places his palm flat against Len’s chest. There’s a swirl of a phoenix tattoo that he got with Mick, covering one of the worst scars that his father gave him. Most of the scars that are distinct aren’t from his father, those have been long done over by failed heists and burns from Mick. The remainders from Lewis that are noticeable are primarily the cigarette burns and one broken bottle. One of the cigarette burns Len made into snake-eye dice.

Once upon a time, Len would never have let him touch like this. Now it’s familiar territory. Now, Len doesn’t so much as bat an eye.

“I’m sorry I came here,” Barry says. And he is. He appreciates everything, but this was cruel. He may be comfortable with Len, and Len may be comfortable with him, but this wasn’t smart for so many reasons. This was abusing that trust, even if Len is okay with it.

“Don’t be,” Len says. “It’s better than you being on your own.”

“Those weren’t my options.”

“No, they weren’t.” Now Len’s hand is at Barry’s neck, and he hits that top knob of Barry’s spine and tension leaves him like a drop. “It’s okay. Really Scarlet, it’s okay. But you need to tell the kids at S.T.A.R. Labs that you’re slowing down. You’ve done enough for Central City, Star City, hell, the world as far as I can see. They can’t be angry with you. If they are, they can answer to me.”

A particularly rough swirl of his thumb and Barry jolts. Len starts and he lays his palm flat in apology, before starting again on other bruises.

“I’m not worried about them being angry,” Barry mumbles. His lips are blurring against Len’s wet skin, and he’s almost mouthing a scar. Barry remembers that one. It’s a stab wound, one of the Rogues that Lisa brought on ended up being not so good and tried to kill Len in a fit of rage. He presses his forehead against it so he can talk a little clearer, though water runs off over his cheeks and into his mouth.

“Then what?” Len asks.

It’s the disappointment. It’s the guilt. There are so many people he wanted to save, wanted to help. Thought, maybe, one day he could go back in time and save Ronnie. Save Eddie. Part of him still wishes he could save his mom and dad, though Barry knows that’s not possible. He wanted to stop other metas, not just stop them, but help them. If he just got faster, if he had more time, he could have. Now, when he feels like maybe he’s on the right track, he’s slowing down. He’ll be letting so many people down. He doesn’t need an audience watching him erode, become useless to the cause.

“I can do more.”

“This is why I’m no hero, Barry,” Len says, passing his fingers underneath Barry’s eyes, rubbing the bags there. “I don’t understand why you feel you have to.”

Len’s hands begin to roam down Barry’s arms, the touches all so deliberate. Barry closes his eyes and this time he’s certain he’s not going to pass out. Not when he can hear Len humming, the sound vibrating in Len’s chest.

Len has a nice voice. People liked to remark that Barry had a nice voice, but Len’s was there too. He doesn’t sing often, but he does hum, particularly in the early mornings. Barry curls into it like it were smoke.

“Looking better,” Len says, kissing the top of Barry’s head. Then he grabs the soap and begins washing Barry down, though Barry can do that himself, he should do that himself after everything Len’s done for him. He tries to take it out of Len’s hands, but Len catches him with his free hand and laces their fingers together so Barry can’t try anymore. “Sit tight, baby.”

The blood comes off of him in pink suds swirling down the drain, and Barry just watches. Len holds him close, being thorough, cautious. Keeps tipping himself to look into Barry’s eyes, probably making sure that he’s still awake. Every now and then when Barry hiccups his breaths, Len cups his throat and takes a deep breath, as though coaching Barry on how to breathe.

Barry takes another look at his arms. The bruises are a bluish color, expansive, but not the deep wells they had been. There are few spots where blood still prickles after Len passes his hand over him, and they’ll be completely sealed in a few hours. The whole mess will be gone in a day, whereas before he became the Flash these kind of wounds would have killed him, and if by some miracle he hadn’t died, he would have had scars all up and down his body the rest of his life, the bruises for months if not a year considering so many of them are bruises to his bones.

Now, he starts anew as if nothing happened. No marks.

Len catches him looking. Glances up at Barry’s face, and Barry smiles, if a little sad. It’s just kind of hard when there’s nothing to show you survived anything, but that’s not entirely fair as he’s faced with Len’s chest mottled with scars.

“It’s much better,” Barry says. “In a day, it’ll be gone. Get to start it all over again.”

Barry tries to make this a hopeful statement, but under the severity of Len’s stare that’s nearly impossible.

Len kisses Barry’s shoulder and breathes him in. He shrinks into Len’s arms.

“I remember, Barry,” he whispers against Barry’s skin. Another kiss to Barry’s collarbone, another a little lower. “I remember.” Len begins tracing where the wounds are most healed, where they are a vibrant green and yellow blotch, and mouths at them, soft, slow. Len wraps his arms around Barry again to hold him close, noses at Barry’s neck. “I remember.”

There’s no lingering warmth to the kisses, the cold water washes it away, but that doesn’t mean they’re not setting Barry’s heart on fire. He tips his head back and Len places his hand around Barry’s throat, gentle, not even holding it just resting his hand there. Barry breathes deepand feels Len’s fingers against the skin, and it makes him shiver.

Then Len’s hands stray from the loops of where Vine-Viper harmed him. No, he moves to tracing other places with a strange familiarity. Tender. Loving. Over where Len first iced him with the Cold Gun. His stomach, tracing a ring around the whole of it, and Barry realizes that’s where Mardon sent hail pitching making a well of a bruise and nearly ruptured his internal organs. He kisses where Lewis shot him, slow, lingering, as though he still has to make it go away.

He’s not just talking about remembering the current wounds, or the ones he inflicted. The ones he saw, he remembers. The ones he’s gotten while they’ve been together, or one’s he heard about when he was away with the Legends. He’s tracing them with his hands, and pressing his lips to them, sucking soft bruises on wounds that are no longer. Wounds that would have scarred, wounds that might have killed him. Because Len _remembers_.

“Oh my God,” Barry says. His breath is gone, and his heart is swollen in his chest, and the shock to his system is so strong that he’s in tears. Tries to gasp for air, but he’s crying too hard, his tears hot against his hands.

He put him through all of this, and Len already remembered. Barry has been acting like such an arrogant prick, and he comes here, dumping it all back on Len, who has enough of his own shit. Who has enough of his own problems, his own memories, his own baggage, and gives him another ton.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, and he’s so loud, it echoes in the bathroom over the sound of the shower. He knows he’s saying it too much, but he just _is._ He’s sorry for everything, he’s sorry for anything, guilt is wrapped around his neck and it’s going to choke him to death if he doesn’t get it out. His crying is loud and sharp in the bathroom and he can’t quiet down. His heart racks against his ribcage, it makes him _sob_ , and he can’t breathe; tries to drink in the spray but he can’t, he can’t stop focusing on the guilt, on the shame of it all. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, slow down, slow down. There’s nothing to forgive, Barr, hey—” Len doesn’t understand. Everyone always views him as some sort of paragon of virtue but he’s a failure and a fraud, and before he can make up for that he’s going to lose his ability to. It’s disgusting.

Then he’s crying like a child in Len’s arms, snotty and gross, complete with the moaning. There’s nothing he can do to calm himself down. Shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes and curls up tighter and tighter into a ball, even though his ribs creak in protest. “I’m so sorry,” he says again, weak and broken.

Len stops trying to convince Barry there’s nothing worth apologizing for, it’s falling on deaf ears. Instead he rubs Barry’s back in circles and says, “get it out. C’mon, let it all out.”

The cold shower thankfully drains him pretty quick, no fire to fuel him, his breath isn’t hot but instead begins to cool along with the rest of him. Len continues to pet him, trace him, hands across his shoulder blades, the lines of his nose, his lips, over old wounds he remembers along his legs, drawing his nail lightly along the muscles of his calves. Eventually he just lays against Len’s chest and tries to breathe through the remains. Barry is caught between feeling guilty for making Len do this and feeling so goddamn grateful because never in a million years would he have ever thought Len would take care of him like this.

When Barry seems to be a bit clearer headed, Len brushes his lips against Barry’s forehead and stares at him for a moment. Swipes his bangs out of his face. Then he reaches over and turns the water to warm, not hot, nothing that would bring much steam.

Then Len goes back to tracing his skin. His fingertips ghost over the wound that is no longer there, in the spread of how it probably would have looked. It makes Barry a little sad that Len had such an expanse of knowledge on scars, but he also can’t help but be strangely grateful too. It’s overwhelming to feel this seen. “I remember when I gave you this one,” Len says. Reverent.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You and I were always good at the cat-and-mouse thing.”

“We still are,” Barry argues.

“We still are.” Len kisses the wound with a bit more force than the others, a bit more impact. “This was later in our games though. Less hostile, more for the thrill of it. And I remember Mick and I, we were on our way out of the exhibit with our loot, and I shot back at you and gotcha, right here,” he presses another kiss, soft and warm against his skin, and Barry sighs. “And god, I just remember looking at you and thinking…”

Len catches his gaze then, his stare impenetrable, just as before. He covers the wound with his whole hand, as though to put up a shield. Then he looks Barry straight in the eye, that considering look, so serious. It makes Barry’s mouth dry.

“…That you should have been able to dodge that one.”

Barry’s train of thought completely derails. For a moment, he thinks nothing at all. Then he laughs — maniacal almost, hysterical certainly — it bursts from him loud and rocous, and his heart for the first time feels _light_.

 _You are such a dick!_ Barry wants to shout, but he has stitches in his side, literal and figurative, and he is laughing too hard. It echoes in the bathroom and fills the air around them. Len snorts, clearly pleased he changed the mood so quick, and he begins to laugh too, pulling Barry closer.

Barry remembers that fight well. Remembered the cold gun being aimed a little ahead, too far ahead, more of a preventative shot, Len had been trying to run at the time with the jewels he’d picked up from the stupid exhibit — which Central City would really think it would stop hosting such events when they knew Captain Cold was in town, but — Len was trying to actually make a clean getaway, but Barry dove too far. Went straight into the blast, though he saw it from a mile away. He even remembers the look of surprise on Len’s face, barely visible behind his goggles, but his eyebrows shooting up. Not that he stayed behind to help him out. In fact, he’s pretty sure Len laughed and ran with the loot. Jerk.

Remembering it all over again, Barry thought he’d be upset, but instead he just laughs harder. He covers Len’s hand in his and tries to catch his breath in order to tell him, “I remember thinking that too.”

Len howls. Lacing their fingers together, laughing with full lungs, it’s almost a heckle how much they are goading each other on. Len’s laugh gets all nasally and _nerdy_ sounding, Barry jabs a finger in his face, but can’t even take a big enough breath to get the air to insult him outright.

Now there are tears in his eyes again, but in a different way. A better way. “Oh my God,” Barry says again, full of mirth, and he’s shoving at Len’s shoulder and Len’s shoving him back. No longer treating him as solely a fragile, breakable thing, even though he’s definitely pulling his punches.

They laugh. Snicker at the ridiculousness of it all. Len, to make up for it, tells Barry a story of when he nearly blew off his own thumb with the Cold Gun believing that Cisco put a tracker on it, the mark still a slice on the base of his thumb, and Barry mocks him openly.

“It’s what you get for taking a gun that wasn’t supposed to be yours.”

“Oh please, it found its home with me.”

After a while, heavy breathing and the warm water bringing back the feeling in Barry’s toes, he lets himself slide against Len’s chest. The echoes of their laughter dies down, and only the rush of the shower fills his ears.

“They’re not all bad,” Barry says, looking over his body, empty of marks. Glancing back at Len’s, whose body is a canvas painted over more than once.

“No. They’re not all bad,” Len agrees. Then he shuts off the water and reaches for a towel. “Think it’s time we get up off the floor.”

“Yeah, help me up,” Barry says, reaching.

“Help you up? Help me up,” Len replies, but he’s looping his arm with Barry’s and they manage to get themselves up on their feet. Len’s already thinking ahead, reaching for ointments and another towel, but Barry spins around and stops him.

He throws his arms around Len, pressing his face into the crook of Len’s neck for just a moment, before grabbing Len’s face and kissing him. For the first time, there’s no blood in his mouth that’s overwhelming, so he can taste Len true as he licks into his mouth, as he pours himself into him. Maybe Barry’s imagining things, but he thinks he can taste the cocoa from earlier, the mini-marshmallows.

Len wraps an arm around his waist, the same steel grip as before. Cups the back of his head with another, careful to avoid any welts. The moment Barry’s breath stutters, he pulls away.

“There you are,” he says, quiet. He drapes a towel over Barry’s shoulders and dries his arms, pulls the towel taught over his shoulders. Reaches up to trace Barry’s lips with the pad of his finger. “I know you.”

So he _did_ hear him earlier. Good. Barry knocks his forehead against Len’s and they rest like that for a moment. Barry swallows, breathes easy, breathes slow with Len, tries to put them in a moment that is not a bloodied bathroom with scraps of his suit and blood all over Len's jeans and shirt that's tossed on the floor. 

They're anywhere else. Somewhere so much better, where everything is fine. 

Then Len pulls away and starts picking up the pieces again, keeping Barry in tow. 

The air is still serious. Barry's voice is raw from the crying, from the yelling of apologies directed at the universe, and Len doesn’t speak much either. Despite Len’s poking, despite Barry’s laughter, the events of the night cannot just be shaken off. Len keeps touching Barry like he’s going to bleed out and die before he gets another chance, and Barry leans into it to block all the storm clouds rolling through his mind so he doesn’t have another episode of the floodgates opening.

Len doesn’t let him go back down the hall, instead keeps bringing him the food that’s overdone now, but Barry eats all the cooked-tough remains because his stomach doesn’t give a damn and he is suddenly ravenously hungry. Drinks down a gallon of water for good measure as he’s pretty sure much of his hydration poured out of him at the door and then the recesses were depleted in the shower.

When Len shows up with a cup of chamomile tea, he pushes the cup into Barry’s hands and then goes back to inspecting his handiwork. The area he stitched up bled a bit more, especially considering the surrounding injuries. He changes the wraps there. The wound on Barry’s leg is not sealed either, but it’s not bleeding nearly as profusely as before.

Len pats along the side of his leg, nodding at the work. “Good. Good,” he breathes, as though he’d been holding his breath this whole time.

Barry takes a sip of his tea. “Are you coming to bed?”

Len shakes his head. “I’m here.”

“Till I fall asleep,” Barry says. Not accusing, just, he knows Len. And he nods.

“I’m going to clean up once you’re out.”

“I can do that.”

Len shakes his head. “Nah, Scarlet, I got it.” He snorts as if he thinks of a joke, but looking back at Barry’s face wipes that clean off of him.

“Are you okay?” Barry asks. He’s asked him that several times tonight and Len’s never really provided an answer. Probably because there’s no good one, probably because he’s not, but it’s still not like Len to avoid the question. He’s more likely to outright lie.

Which he does. “I’m good. Now that you’re good, I’m good.” Because Len is not good. There’s something behind his eyes, Barry can see it. Something screaming behind the scenes, and Barry finds himself willing to just let it go. Because honestly, there’s something behind Barry’s lungs that’s doing the same.

“Okay.”

He tilts his face up and kisses Len’s cheek, then just noses the skin at Len’s temple and breathes. Len pulls the mug out of Barry’s hand and cups the back of Barry’s head, then kisses him on his steaming mouth, lowering him into the pillows. A low rumble whirs in the back of Barry’s throat, and he wraps his arms around Len, trying to get the man to curl on top of him.

They lay twisted like that for a long time. Soft touches, every now and then Len making a brief pass to check Barry’s wounds, but for the most part they are dusting each other with kisses and breath and words that are almost incomprehensible but are soft. It’s so late it’s early, the four stars in the sky are dim compared to the bright light of the moon that filters in through the curtains, and under Len’s warm breath and protective touches, the room begin to rock like he’s on a boat underneath the stars, and his thoughts sway toward sleep.

“Goodnight, Barry.”

“G’night, Len.”

Two breaths, and the feeling of Len’s hand covering his heart, and Barry is out for the night.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't forgotten about my long fic, but this has been possessing my mind for the past three days. I wrote most of it in like a day and have just been editing and adding the finishing touches for the past two days. Also, already have ideas for more, so if you want to check back to see if this becomes part of a series, please do! 
> 
> Also, I suck at tags. I really don't know what all should be on here, I'm pretty new to writing for this fandom, so any help with that would be great. Thanks!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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